Michael Moore has a new movie out. Capitalism: A Love Story. The LA Times says this about it:

“Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil,” the two-hour movie concludes. “You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.”

What sort of economic system is he proposing? “Democracy”? That isn’t an economic system. And democracies (we are supposed to have a Republic) seldom last more than a few decades.

And the irony is that Moore’s wealth and ability to make whatever movie he wants comes from the opportunities afforded him by capitalism. If it weren’t for capitalism Moore would be making probably be required by the state to be making exercise videos (if such a thing as videos and fat people even existed) which no one would take seriously. Instead he is making “documentaries” which demonstrate he is totally clueless about any topic he cares about but yet enough people want to believe him that he is able to be a wealthy man. In that sense I suppose capitalism has allowed an evil to exist and prosper but that is hardly sufficient reason abandon an economic system that has improved the status of people more than any in the history of man–even though it has never really been fully implemented.

You can pick a socialist out of large crowd in about 3.5 to 3.85 seconds.  He’s the one angrily protesting the use of the word “socialist” while simultaneously advocating socialism, while simultaneously trying to sound educated.  That’s quite a trick.  You have to give socialists that much; they can be fairly good at multi tasking and they have been known to work hard.  Loudly advocating stagnation and decay, while strenuously denying it at the same time, all while taking and disposing of other people’s property and money, while compiling massive lists of massive lists of massive sub lists of dos and don’ts for all of us to follow, all under various threats, isn’t easy.  Fighting the revolution and getting the constitution written and ratified was a minor task by comparison.

In comments here, Endif, running full speed and damn the torpedoes into my nets, referred to the federal takeover of banks and automakers (and presumably everything else the government has taken over in whole or in part, from education to agriculture to energy and transportation industries, to drugs, alcohol and gambling, etc., etc., etc., etc.) as “Investment”.

Socialists get all agitated and defensive at the mention of the “S” word.  What is to be done about it?  What term designating state sponsored coercion would they accept as properly defining their belief system?  We know they quit liking the term “Liberal” and they never understood that “Fascist”  applied to them.  You call one of them a Fascist and they’ll take offense, thinking you’re calling them a conservative.  It’s great fun but it doesn’t lead to even a rudimentaqry level of understanding when two people are using the same words but speaking entirely different languages.  They seem to be using “Progressive” less and less too, now that more people know where and when that political term originated.

What’s happening in the U.S. is more akin to Fascism.  It’s all the same to me, or to put it another way; the subtle distinctions between different versions of state sponsored coercion don’t interest me, nor do the distinctions between the Crips and the Bloods.  Nor do I much care what the advocates and practitioners of socialism prefer to be called– I just know what they don’t like being called, and that in itself is interesting.

Tell us which you prefer, Socialists, the word “socialism” or the word “Fascism”.  If you dislike being called a socialist, surely you have some specific preference.  We know you don’t like “Nazi” mainly because you think it too means conservative.  “Moderate” works for me, since moderates are people who have accepted the premises of socialism but aren’t willing to admit it.  “Socialist in denial” is pretty descriptive too, if redundant.  Ooh; how about “Investment Coordinator”?  Hey, I like that.  We can henceforth refer to socialists as Investment Coordinators.  They’ll like that, I bet.  But wait; what would we call real investment coordinators?

On second thought, I’ll keep calling socialists socialists.  We all know what it means, even if socialists try to act like they don’t.